Today, there is growing pressure for social workers to engage with research and draw on it in practice. But why is social science research important for social work? This, the first book in the Research in Social Work series, published in association with the European Social Work Research Association, provides an accessible way to think about this question. Drawing on evidence from across Europe, Asia and the United States, it covers how research is conducted, used, and perceived. It questions how research can affect the reality of social work while at the same time providing the ground work for social workers to become more thoughtfully practical—and practically thoughtful.